Weekend Pairing - Thanksgiving Holiday

Had a glorious Thanksgiving--hope you did too!
Afterward, we flipped the switch from Autumn to Christmastime.
I laughed with my family, ate ridiculously well, sat in front of the fire, took chilly afternoon walks, listened to the dog purr on my lap, and crocheted my fingers off.
It was a good holiday.

Full Friday Flickr Faves

iliveinoctober . iliveinoctober . liekerroomijs . danske
I was kind of hoping that looking at these delicate photographs would help me balance out how heavy and weighted down I still feel from yesterday's feast, but alas, no luck so far.

Have a good weekend, everybody!

Feasting!

Originally uploaded by djola_has_seen. BTW, the set this photo belongs to is GORGEOUS.

For all those in the US, Happy Thanksgiving! As a vegetarian, I'll be stuffing myself with everything but the turkey today, though what I'm really excited about is that by the end of the feast this evening my self-imposed restriction will be lifted and I can officially begin listening to Christmas music. Bing Crosby, here I come!

Pretty as a Painting

Painterly cocktail dresses in a painterly lookbook for Olivia Rubin, Spring/Summer 2010, photographed by Alistair Guy. Love it.

Cupcakes from Cupcake Royale, my one true love.

I'm celebrating my birthday today, so here's a cupcake for me and another for you! :)

Fact & Fiction

You know what these tights are? These are fairy tights. Paired with a little fluttery dress (black, maybe?) I'd feel like quite the woodland nymph. Wouldn't it be fun to dance about at wintry holiday parties in these lovelies?

Weekend Pairing - Fun to cook, fun to eat

The boy and I threw a little pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving Feast this weekend, and the absolutely fantastic food blog Smitten Kitchen was a large part of it--I get so many of my recipes from Deb! Sunday evening we enjoyed salmon and wild rice with creamy lemon-dill sauce, rosemary roasted potatoes, cauliflower and brussels sprouts in caper-butter (definitely going to have to make this again), winter fruit salad, and a Dorie Greenspan cranberry upsidedown cake for dessert. Success!

Jon Klassen

I'm completely in love with the illustration work of Jon Klassen, whose recent work includes visual development for the movie Coraline (haven't seen it yet, but the more I hear about it the more I really want to--the list of talented artists involved in it continues to amaze me!). Prints of the above image are available here, and I just might have to get one myself.

F I C T I O N Sale

Four Autumnal prints are on sale in the shop! Clad in scarves or carrying umbrellas, the little monsters on these prints are quite a bit cuter than the rainy, cold, and blustery weather outside my window right now, so pick one of these guys up at their discounted price and bring home something cheery to combat the November wet and dark.
Sale prints will be available until November 30.

Slice

Jaq Belcher's paper works--delicate and beautiful.

I Heart You, Streethearts

In the spite of the fact (or perhaps because of it) that I have almost zero fashion "daring" and wear jeans, a simple top, and a cardi just about every day, I love looking at fashion street-style blogs, and the most recent one that's caught my eye is the cutely named Streethearts.

Cedric Bihr

I'm loving Cedric Bihr's dreamy, hazy photographs. His landscapes, portraits, fashion photography: all fantastic.

Weekend Pairing - When will it stop raining?

Tried some delicious fish fritters and (strong) mojitos.
Devoured yet another good book--I've been the biggest bookworm ever this Fall!
Saw a fantastically terrible movie--Roland Emmerich, your films are always good for a laugh.
Started planning the menu for a little pre-Thanksgiving Thanksgiving dinner--can't wait!

Classic Class

Another gorgeous Sartorialist lady. She looks just perfect.

The September Issue

Question: How awesome is this documentary?
Answer: Pretty darn awesome.
I finally got to see it, and though it may be focused on Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Wintour, senior stylist Grace Coddington steals the show. I hope I'm that feisty and creative and amazing when I'm almost 70.

Sophie Blackall - Phoenix with Crutches

I first heard about Sophie Blackall's adorably quirky Missed Connection series from Mallory on Where the Lovely Things Are, and I just had to pass it along here as well. It's such a great idea--as Sophie says of the project on her blog, "Messages in bottles, smoke signals, letters written in the sand; the modern equivalents are the funny, sad, beautiful, hopeful, hopeless, poetic posts on Missed Connections websites. Every day hundreds of strangers reach out to other strangers on the strength of a glance, a smile or a blue hat. Their messages have the lifespan of a butterfly. I'm trying to pin a few of them down." They're also now for sale! This one's my favorite: it's kind of mysterious, and I don't quite get it, but the illustration is just so gorgeous.

Mid-Week Break

Yesterday was a nice day off (thank you Veterans!). My diet, in celebration of Fall, sleeping in, and not having to go to work, was comprised entirely of delicious baked goods: scones made by my mother and dropped off the day before for brunch (served with this unbelievably delicious creamed honey), a cranberry-orange cupcake from Cupcake Royale (should I be proud or embarrassed that I've now tried all the flavors from their Cupcake Harvest Festival?), homemade spinach and mushroom calzones from one of the Moosewood cookbooks, and cranberry-pecan tart for dessert. It's cold outside, so I suppose this is my attempt to put on some extra pounds before I go into winter hibernation, black bear style.

Fleas and Swallows

Lovely bandanas over at Box & Flea. The swallow one is my favorite--I love all the colors it comes in! I don't normally wear bandanas, but these are so great I just might have to branch out.
Found via Simply Photo.

Videos x3

Image via taleeroe. Anyone know the original source?

Feet of Courage is my favorite song off Nancy Elizabeth's new album Wrought Iron, and now Bafta award-winning filmmakers Esther May Campbell and John Milton have made a trippy video to go along with it.

How adorable and creative is this advertisement? I want one of those crazy colored bunnies for a pet.

And last but not least, in a cute (and slightly strange) promotional short, Canada introduces the 2010 Olympic mascots to the world. Mukmuk is totally the best.

100 Abandoned Houses

I wish I lived in Detroit and could go around and visit the sites of the 100 Abandonded Houses project. I love how the buildings look so sad and lonely, but strangely beautiful at the same time. The artist statement about the state of the city and its housing problem is really sensitive and great as well.

Too much J.M. Barrie?

I think I must have Peter Pan on the brain, because here's another room that totally rings true with my mental picture of the Darling's nursery! The blue chair, cheerful yellow ceramics on the cute little dresser, the charming wallpaper, and the slanting light coming in from a window just out of sight? Peter Pan all the way. Apparently the styling is supposed to be inspired by Virginia Woolf's room, but it looks a little too lush and little kiddish to me for that.
via Ratlion's Den, Homebug.

At once Scathing & Complimentary

I managed to get downtown for First Thursday this past week to check out the Seattle Art Museum's new displays. I have a love/hate (mostly hate) relationship with SAM. As the largest art museum in Seattle, I always feel like I should keep up to date on what they are showing and take advantage of the chance to see fine art in person (one of my favorite things in the world!). In my opinion, however, SAM is really a rather terrible museum. The exhibits seem to be arranged in ways that never display the work to full advantage, and the write-ups accompanying the pieces are sometimes laughably bad. They also have a ridiculous marketing scheme: huge, catchy posters all over the city making their latest exhibits seem radical and exciting and enormous, and then you arrive at the museum and realize that the exhibit is actually comprised of six, negligible sketches, for example (as in the case of the Michelangelo exhibit currently on display. One of the pieces was a grocery list on which the great artist had doodled a teeny loaf of bread. Really, SAM?).
It's very frustrating.
The exhibit Alexander Calder: A Balancing Act, however, was really pretty fantastic. The exhibit was satisfyingly large, included a variety of different kinds of work, and was lit with harsh spotlighting (which would normally have been distracting) that dropped delicate patterns of shadows off each twirling mobile. In the end, I really fell in love with some of Calder's pieces, and I had a greater appreciation for the man as an artist: exactly what a good art museum display should facilitate.
See SAM? I just can't quit you.
The exhibit will be running until April 11, 2010. I'm definitely going to have to get back to see it again.

Weekend Pairing

-This pairing isn't a very accurate visual for the weekend--it was taken in the very brief break between the grey skies and drizzly rain that comprised most of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
-Watched this movie. I was surprised by how much I loved it. How gorgeous is Maya Rudolph?
-Made another batch of celery root soup (I know I go on about this book but it is fantastic and I am a soup fanatic lately!). This time I froze the leftovers. Knowing that I have tons of homemade soup in the freezer makes me feel very rich.
-Finished this book. I devoured it in three days--couldn't put it down!

SO I finally caved and made a Tumblr account. Collecting a never-ending horde of lovely photos=waaay too addicting. However, I'm going to stand firm and never, ever make a Twitter account.
You can check me out here. :)

The Art Monster

I absolutely love Alexandra Hedberg's Art as Business series that she's been keeping up on her blog. It is so nice to read about her struggles (and triumphs!) with the ambiguous and intimidating monster that is "making it as an artist"--everyone wants to tackle that creature, but it's surprisingly difficult to get real, practical, and unpretensious advice about it! Luckily, her posts are always down-to-earth, funny, and informative. Thanks Alexandra!

The Painted Veil - Visual Inspiration

The Painted Veil is so visually inspiring. Granted, a large part of that visual splendor is supplied by the gorgeous Chinese landscape, but still--the lighting and overall color palette, along with the period clothing and prop details: beautiful.

Dreamland

Another whimsical room inspiration--how magical is that glowing pink nook? I almost expect to see little fairies flitting out of there.
via Home Sweet Design, taleeroe.

Zhi Lin's 'Invisible & Unwelcome People: Chinese Railroad Workers'

I saw this series of watercolor studies by Zhi Lin at a gallery in Seattle about a year ago. As a former student of his and as someone familiar with his earlier work (the staggering Five Capital Executions in China) I was impressed with how this new series seemed like both a continuation of his main interests and an investigation into a different way of working. His older works are impressive for the sheer number of figures depicted in their chaotic crowd scenes; in these newer pieces (in which Lin is exploring "the history of Chinese workers in the construction of American transcontinental railroads and the brutal treatment they encountered in the 19th century"), it is the palpable absence of people that is what is so powerful.
This series will be on display in the Koplin Del Rio Gallery in Culver City, CA from November 7-December 19. I wish I could head down there and see it again.

F I C T I O N 2010 Calendar

I am so excited to announce that that there are now 2010 Calendars in the shop!

Alexis Anne

I find Alexis Anne Mackenzie's collaged-paper pieces to be incredibly beautiful and incredibly sad at the same time. They look delicate and fragile, composed of bits of flora and fauna that are cut from books she's collected for years. There is such a sense of age and remembrance about these works that their overall effect for me is one of bittersweet nostalgia.

F I C T I O N Early Holiday Shop Update

Two new card designs have been added to the shop! It's getting to be my favorite time of year, so more wintry illustrations will be going up as the holidays get closer--I had a lot of fun making these guys. I've also been working on an exciting Fiction project that should be all set soon and up in the shop...I can't wait until it's ready to share with you all!

In the Nursery

Doesn't this room look like it's straight out of Peter Pan? I can totally picture it as the Darling's nursery--it's even got the most perfect window for the children to fly out of on their way to Neverland!

Weekend Pairings - Halloween and November 1st

Went to my first soccer game--and a play-off one to boot! (Not this weekend, but Thursday, so it's close)
Made another soup from this great book--I want to work my way through all of the recipes in there.
Ate lots of Almond Joys & Butterfingers.
Bought some more candles to stave off the wet and the dark.
Prepared some new goods for the shop--should be up soon. :)
Happy November!